Updating variable names in hotstart.nc

[kjnam]

@josephzhang8 Currently, the variables names in hotstart.nc are not consistent with those in SCHISM output nc files. Unless there is a good reason, I think it is better to use consistent variable names and attributes throughout SCHISM input and output files. It will help us visualize data and develop tools for SCHISM.

[josephzhang8]

Thx @kjnam. I'll look into this in the context of other on-going things.

[kjnam]

@josephzhang8 Thank you. It would be great if hotstart.nc uses UGRID conventions and names as SCHISM output nc files.

[josephzhang8]

I'm not sure about the benefit; r u saying using UGRID would allow us to visualize hotstart.nc. In any case we can already do that with schismview (python based).

So far we have not really benefitted much from using the UGRID convention.

[kjnam]

@josephzhang8 We use xarray, which relies on dim names and other attributes heavily. So, consistent var and dim names will be very helpful. I agree that UGRID is less important.

[josephzhang8]

@kjnam : changing var names in hotstart.nc would trigger many downstream changes. A simple solution may be to just long names to each var as attributes. Would this work?

[kjnam]

@kjnam In fact, I am OK with the current hotstart variable names, but it is better to have consistent dimension names. Long names or extra attributes that can be mapped would be certainly helpful.